Himalayas

Have I not seen mountains before?

Have I not been up hills before?

The cool beach waters entice.

The warm desert sands attract.

Have I not already seen it all before?

Yet, these Himalayas up North!

Great giants, snow topped!

Lending the horizon, a silhouette.

Ah, what do I say about these Himalayas up North?

Without a sound, it writes into your breath and eyes

a comfortable hangover within.

Don’t tell me I didn’t warn!

Once these mountains settle

in your breath and

photographed behind your eyes,

I warn-

you’d breathe and see nothing with-out.

Shambho

An ache breathes

in my dreams and paintings

to lay and leave my limbs on

these mountains mighty.

A visit ensued so.

And the dream, in part, conceived

without warning.

But warning I did need not.

My limbs didn’t tire.

Only my breath did.

Then again, unescapable.

The warmth of this ache,

thawed the chilly air around.

And the snow didn’t distract

my stride to the crown.

Then around the bend of the trail,

I saw.

Swathed in white snow,

He stood as striking as His abode.

A stubborn resolve

to reach Him ascended.

The fuel to my weary limbs and lungs,

just one burning word on my lips;

a ploy titled ‘Shambho’!

Traveler

A passenger she is,

in distinctive alleyways

and corridors of secret mirror.

A traveler she is,

amid paint stains

and tunes that steer her.

From airplanes that sally,

people, vehicles and thoughts below-

awfully petty.

A traveler she is,

and she knows the vacation is,

bizarrely temporary.

Flame

Beneath the fine shawls and kohl,

lives someone.

Flame-like.

Wafting in the air.

In immobility, this flame flickers not.

It is as still as still can get.

It is as fragile as silence.

And then the shawls cease to exist

Kohl too isn’t present

Kohl only embraces withdrawn eyes

and a voiceless mind.

Not even music dwells in it,

that otherwise is so incessant.

But how evanescent this spell?

Once again, the shawls begin to encumber

And the kohl starts to smudge

With the repeated blinks of

quivering intellect.

Tales of this enticing flame

You’ve only innocently overheard

I wonder where goes this flame,

when to the world you are dead?

Thoughts

On a platform I stand,

the ground glides beneath my feet.

With the gale I sway

and the ground I shun.

In this calm, there are words.

These words seep into and from somewhere.

Then come stories

that I dread.

Photographs I refuse to stitch,

soar in speed first like trains I have met.

I gape at each dispassionately

long enough

until they turn coy and drip.

Leaving me with a new one.

But I do the same.

Till my tongue retires

and my speech goes to bed.

Desert

Have my rituals become futile?

Has my pride surpassed devotion?

I lay it sacred, do you not see?

Not a day slumbered without it.

But now, of it I am being deprived.

Should this dispirit me?

Is this my cue to impede?

Or must this coarsen me?

But why do you not expel the ache?

Are you not deserting me?

Pain

Starving for my thick-skin,

this hungry burning throb

meets me at the sole.

I flinch in pain,

as I bury hot teardrops

in the valleys of my cheekbone.

But mellow words from lovers, pierce harder.

‘No shield against compassion’,

I shrug and sigh and allow its sting.

The blissfulness that it is, oh!

What then are these mere blisters,

compared to that ardor?

Kashi

Here, the queenly Ganges flow.

Boats and lamps tread like fishes.

Some fast. Some slow.

Like that unfathomable depth of river,

is our grasp of life.

Here, on the doors, death knocks.

Loud, pounding on the ear and heart.

And then where Her eyes fell,

the forehead throbs and

when one sits, the ground slants.

Here, every meandering road leads

you to a shrine.

The twists of the lanes

stumbles you upon snake charmers,

betel leaves and wild trance.

Here, the air tastes of

incense sticks and pyre smokes.

The madness and the clatter though

seem to dwindle when eyes closed.

Here, silk and piety equally sought.

Here, cultures in the past madly fought.

Here, amid the dark wild manes of Shiva,

emerge the moon

that the river passionately echoes.

Here, poetry effortlessly lurks

at every nook.

Here, cows, birds and bulls

graze every alcove.

Here, one hears the dusky deathly knocks

and the cremation fires on riverfronts.

Here, stacks of wood wait

to burn the next dead.

In eagerness or indifference?

Indifference perhaps.

As millions of deaths it has already observed.

Guru

Oh! How you keep me waiting

for a taste of you.

Indulging in a game of hide and seek,

vaulting from wall to wall.

And finally, when I hold you by the eye,

in place of feeling triumphant,

I lay down my arms and sob.

Upon finding her lost child,

like the gentle mother would.

You smile and play the fool;

‘Am I not here now, Mother?

Why then do you moan?’

You are too sound to be true and here’s why I sob.

You are not just blood and bones,

but a vacuum, so vacantly lodged.

You are both the roaring sun and golden sand.

You are both the mirror and the mirrored.

You are plain music yet an intricate design.

You are ashes and flowers alike.

You are the vehement fire I burn to be and in.

You are where I have rested my time.

You are both words and pauses in my poetry.

You are but not only a child.

The teacher, the much-loved, you query.

Oh! Do you even now not realize?

My beloved Guru’s divine feet, to touch, I pine.

And that’s why I so tenderly cry.

Sleep

On my way to sleep

I ponder about hours that made the day

Until heaviness knocks eyelids

Carrying weight of thoughts, day and night

And anticipate next daylight

Like a waning little blue flame

That dies into thin air

Where does it really go

When a void of darkness surrounds?

Thoughts

There’s a chamber I entice you to visit.

But you impishly refuse.

I keep anticipating your appearance

but you fancy arriving unsolicited.

And then you linger around 

when I don’t want.

 Oh dear, I have always wanted to ask

where do you live, if not in my mind?

Though, these days, you’re a little tamed.

I summon, and you do budge.

I take a little liberty then

to watch you fool around.

You trade your clothes so quick,

like moods of the sky.

I judge you not.

But in wonder, may I ask-

when one day I relocate my chamber,

and you struggle to find your way,

would you admit defeat?

and stay away when I demand?

Empty

This emptiness has a

hopeless poet, at loss.

While words spring in bounty,

What just are words without a string?

Fragile beads pour from empty cups,

hungry to fall on the

tongue of the one wanting to read.

From empty cups, one can drink.

In emptiness, ironically,

no space there is

for letters even.

Let alone words meaningless.

For the first time,

A full bowl of glass beads there is.

But the thread itself,

has fled into emptiness.

Fire

In quietness, 

I am thorough blue.

Violent crimson, 

in muddled chaos.

My resolve to touch Him, 

sets off a trail.

Ironically, accompanied by

His gentle glow.

I sprint relentlessly,

unapologetic, mad, 

like wildfire 

you’ve only heard of.

Too hot it may be, 

trust me, 

to bar me with 

your bare hands now.

Moon

Ignorant was I,

of your ways.

Unaware of your forms,

unconscious of your poise,

I looked in the clouds,

to see much later, a fine face.

On days you are absolute,

From you, I’ll drink wild.

You play within me, us

and the ocean.

From now,

Your tides, I’ll gladly ride.

Like leaves from a darling book,

you turn every night.

Invariably now my hungry eyes,

hunt for your regal curves in the sky.

Rains

Intriguing, not just the rain;

But the drama of light and sound

that it begets.

A vein of blue light soaks the sky,

baffling us

into thinking that it’s daybreak.

A light, bright enough to expose

raindrops as shimmering snowflakes,

against its lustrous gleam.

Chased by a crash of sound;

A passionate growl,

brash enough to startle even so-called brave,

shudder in shock.

Rains, like pails of water flung

back to Earth, the wrath of clouds.

Ah! These cycles.

What does breaking-free from it mean?

Darkness

Tonight, I am not afraid of darkness.

My eyes are closed

and now open.

Nothing changes- immobile darkness.

Tonight, I am undaunted.

 

I look around to drink in

My room, my hands, my face.

Only boundaries of skin.

So insignificant.

Tonight, I am not afraid of it.

 

I am not scared of it devouring me

I am not scared of ghosts like I used to be.

I pine for darkness in place of lightbulbs

Because tonight, fluorescence drips from my spine.

And tonight, I am willing to diffuse in it.

 

 

Himalayas

Often a muse for my paintbrushes

and innumerable canvas papers.

I am being summoned

to paint, in my eyes these mountains now.

So, way up yonder north,

live these dignified majestic peaks.

Oh! Am I being summoned,

to be humbled by these mountains now?

Intact white, garbed in snow.

Where drums breathe heavily,

fires dance untamed,

and rivers sway green and blue.

Before I resign.

Before I run out of breath,

I am being summoned

I am being summoned

to perish gracefully at these mountains now.

 

Twilight sparks

Words burn

the meek paper.

But papers,

not enough.

 

We kindle fire!

From blazing fire,

words hastily roar.

Thunder. Triangles.

 

Allow us to touch you.

We’ll do our share

like the groan of drums

to set you alight.

 

Let the world catch fire

and stumble on radiance.

From those little sparks

that were stirred by this Twilight.
 

Drunk

With intoxicated eyes

a gleaming tinge He conveys,

of a mysterious thread

constantly breaking this blistering insane.

One more word.

Just one more glance.

Just once more

to be drunk on His eyes again.

 

Meditate

First, her face dissolved with the walls.

Then her hands, she couldn’t feel.

Her feet vanished,

and so did her shoulders.

All that lingered, was her throbbing spine.

Everything else, flawless spacious infinite.

 

 

Poetry

Poetry kills.

Its magic traps us

in its serpentine fragrant passages,

now and again.

Rendering us feeble

before the sweetness that it is.

 

Poet

I'm no poet.

I know not

of metaphors

or alliterations.

 

I’m no poet.

I know not

of rhymes

or repetitions.

 

I am as unschooled as you.

But still, I write.

About you.

 

So, the world assumes I must have,

a favorite poet.

But oh! How do I let them know?

That my poet and poetry are both you?

 

Isha

At Velliangiri foothills, lives

a cheery abode.

 

In there, reside Shiva

and His beautiful consort.
 

A space, little.

Yet, with love it is flooding.

 

A home, unperturbed.

Yet, graciously unsettling.

 

Merging

His is the name, I find myself recite,

every so often.

 

His is the energy, I find myself sip,

every so often.

 

His is the presence, I find myself caress,

every so often.

 

His is the dream, I find myself visit,

every so often.

 

He is the sea, I want to jump into.

He is the womb, I want to crawl back to.

 

Would you know if

my poems are of Shiva?

Or of my Master?

 

Because after that night, for me,

two lines have gently begun to merge.

 

Him and Trance

In those tunes, I see Him.

An unusual style though,

a slow abandoned dance.

Two doses or a thousand,

of mysterious, nameless trance.

 

In a mere glimpse,

I devour a droplet of ecstasy

that He is drowned in.

The same, flowing from

the corner of His eyes.

 

The kind of tune that makes

eyes, bereft of light and

throat, bereft of voice,

cry and squeal inside

to its impassioned delight.

 

A night

His dark face stood

like a mountain.

Flirting with the blackness

of the night.

Little naïve creatures, in bliss,

wiggled and pranced,

at His foothill,

all night. 

These little creatures herded,

from distant soils,

to savor every piece of Him,

dusk till dawn.

Then,

a pair of puncturing eyes,

furtively, uttered

something enticing.

So, I now unwearyingly, hang on.

 

Before you

Tears soak my kohled eyes

when they meet you.

Seeking your approval,

to let me to go. 

 What, O what,

should I do,

when clock ticks away,

besides that, that has been taught?

Neither would sun come up,

without you around.

Nor would moon concur to stay,

without hearing your sound.

 My beloved Master!

You must let me go.

Let me go,

before it’s your time to.